Modalities of Perceiving Threats: The Time Factor

Abstract

The threat of danger is experienced differently depending on whether it is presented as immediate or to come sometime in the future. Immediate threat reflexively triggers physiological reactions and circumstances will dictate whether the reaction is flight, defence or starvation. When the source of the threat is projected in some distant future, the degree of belief in its reality and level of danger comes into play, with accompanying rationalisation that often reinforces cognitive biases. This is where the assessment of reality, urgency and the importance of a threat depends on how information about it is conveyed and received. Belief depends on trust in the value of this information. But for a century, communication (a new name for propaganda and advertising) has increasingly infiltrated information, until they have now become indistinguishable. In recent decades, science has also been contaminated by this communicative threat. Research programmes and their announced technological spin-offs are extraordinary opportunities to sell a very effective mix of dream and terror.